While digital media have attracted plenty of attention and marketing dollars, traditional media continue to play a big role, especially when it comes to the ability of consumers to recall advertising messages. Kenji Govaers, a partner in the Consumer Products practice, discusses new findings on traditional media and the best advertising strategies for larger and smaller brands.

As digital video gains ground in advertising, leading television networks are taking steps to strengthen their competitive position. In this short video, Danny Hong, a partner with Bain & Company's Media practice, outlines four steps that can help networks harness $10 billion to $20 billion in operating profits. Read the Bain Brief: Will the Ad Revolution Be Televised?

Digital video has become the first choice of many consumers and marketers, a troubling trend for television advertisers. Television networks, however, have a critical opportunity to adapt to market shifts, adjust their value propositions and cater to marketers' data needs, says Bain Partner Charlie Kim, who leads Bain & Company's Media practice in the Americas, in this short video.

Why should a viral video of a giggling mom in a Chewbacca mask frighten television executives? Because digital video is encroaching on traditional television’s biggest and last remaining advantage: the mass audience. With more than 155 million views and counting, the four-minute Facebook video of “Chewbacca Mom” Candace Payne cracking herself up in her car while donning a mask of the Star Wars Wookiee might even eclipse the total US viewership of the London 2012 Olympics, one of TV’s most watched sporting events. But while NBC made just a small profit on the games, after shelling out more than $1 billion for the right to air them, Facebook will scoop up 45% of ad revenue associated with Payne’s delightfully goofy viral hit—and the company didn’t [...]

In 2009, for the first time, people around the world tried their hands at farming. The virtual kind, that is—brought to us by FarmVille, the Flash game developed by Zynga and made available on Facebook. After its launch, FarmVille quickly became Facebook’s most popular game. It stayed on top for more than two years. Even if you didn’t play FarmVille yourself, you were likely the recipient of more than a few notifications from Facebook friends trying to unlock new achievements within the game. Other games and developers have had similarly meteoric success: Twitch, a video-streaming website for gamers, hit 100 million unique viewers a month earlier this year. Supercell, a developer of socially oriented casual video games, grossed close to $1 billion in 2013, its [...]

Media consumers who prefer native digital content now make up nearly half the audience for entertainment in developed markets and more than a third of the audience for publishing and online services. In developing markets, those percentages are slightly lower, but trending in the same direction. These consumers who, regardless of age, favor content and services that have been designed and distributed exclusively through digital (and especially mobile) channels, are transforming not only entertainment but also publishing and services. Perhaps most important for media companies, a younger cohort among these consumers says that it is increasingly willing to pay for content. These are among the findings of Bain’s annual survey of media use across global markets. Bain’s 2014 report focused on the rise of these [...]

When Beyoncé quietly released her eponymous album as an iTunes Store exclusive in 2013, many were surprised to see it sell more than 800,000 copies worldwide in just three days. After all, there was none of the prerelease hype to rev up her fans. The album went on sale with little warning and quickly became the fastest-selling album in iTunes’ history. Now, exclusive digital releases are de rigueur in music today. Just last month, Prince released his new album HITnRUN on the Jay Z-backed streaming service Tidal. As I see this, I’m reminded how, in 2001, so many people questioned whether consumers would pay for music after getting a taste for illegal downloads via file-sharing companies such as Napster and BitTorrent. Another camp of doubters [...]

Television advertising faces a critical moment of transition. Digital media and, in particular, digital video channels are becoming first options for consumers—and for marketers that increasingly expect television to deliver targeting and measurement capabilities similar to digital. Bain’s most recent research on marketing trends finds that marketers now say television performs worse than digital in the areas they care most about, including targeting, measurement and engagement. Of greatest concern? Digital advertising is even challenging TV’s once unassailable area of dominance: audience reach. This research also marks the first time we have seen a decline in TV’s appeal when we asked marketers which media comprise their five largest advertising channels (see Figure 2). Major brands are shifting ad dollars away from TV faster than most people [...]